Red Stitch Actors Theatre

St Kilda

THE members of the Red Stitch Actors Theatre have come a long way since the night ten years ago when they ripped seats from the floor of one of Melbourne's oldest venues to equip their tiny theatre in St Kilda.

Jackie and Veronica are addicts by nature. Hooked on alcohol, drugs and even their own relationship. Now, twenty years on, they can’t seem to quit each other, no matter how squalid their lives have become. Nothing can come between them - nothing except a hat.

In a bold conclusion to the first half of their 2012 season, Red Stitch revisit the work Stephen Adly Guirgis (author of the Green Room Award winning 2003 production Jesus Hopped The A Train) with the Australian premiere of his hit comedy, The Motherf**ker With the Hat.

When Jackie arrives home on parole, eager to celebrate and map out a golden future for himself and his girlfriend, he is shaken to find a hat next to Veronica’s bed. Paranoid, enraged and irrational, Jackie spirals out of control as he attempts to track down the owner of the misplaced headwear.

In his latest play, Stephen Adly Guirgis draws on the flawed nature of men and women, their fragile moral codes and appetite for addiction. Guirgis takes aim at the 12-step psychological doctrines of recovery programs, and how their adherents can justify all kinds of self-serving, behavior.

Directed by David Bell (Creditors, The Little Dog Laughed), The Motherf**ker with the Hat is a high-octane verbal prize fight. Funny, fast moving and provocative, the play combines fiery confrontations with softer, sympathetic insights into human behaviour.